Mickey Harte’s message

Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has appealed to the public to do their bit to contribute to the fight against the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

“We need to be selfless about this, and do it for the good of others, and in turn we will benefit from it,” he said.

“There’s something very serious happening here, and we need to take it very seriously.

“It’s not about whether it affects us directly or not, or whether we contract this virus or not, it’s about the knock-on effect if we don’t take the simple information that’s been sent our way, about washing our hands, of distancing ourselves and the social isolation that’s required.”

The Red Hand manager said sport is unimportant at this time of extreme crisis, and he encouraged people to utilise the extra time they have on their hands by devoting some of it to prayer.

“Maybe when we have more times on our hands now, we should make more time to pray as well, because I think that will have a big impact on how we can control the speed of the arrival of the worst of this virus with us.”

Mickey had a special message for those who continue to ignore official advice on social distancing, and congregate in numbers, risking their own health and the health of others.

“There’s a degree of normality about, in that young people feel they’re indestructible, that they can handle this, and they maybe haven’t taken the time to look at the bigger picture.

“But it’s not only younger people. I think other people too are actually not adhering to the strict regulations that are being put to us day and daily, that they can play a part in avoiding this surge.

“We can’t stop this. All the medics, all the experts, will say this cannot be stopped, but it needs to be controlled, it needs to be limited, we all have a part to play in that and we need to take that responsibility very seriously.

“There can be something positive about this as well, maybe we begin to appreciate the people around us more as well, because we take them for granted.

“We take our lifestyle for granted, we take our employment for granted, so we need to just think, yes it will be a disruption, it will be asking questions of us to do things that we don’t normally do.”